Saving Guardsman Ryan
by Brother-Sergeant Rafen
Summary: I was watching the Omaha Beach scene in Saving Private Ryan, and wondered what would happen if you put it in the 41st millennium. This is my answer. :) Rated T for content/language


Saving Guardsman Ryan

The stormy air buffeted the Valkyrie with gale-force winds, shaking the craft and the precious guardsmen inside it. A few puked, airsick, and the gunship soon stank with the smell of vomit and the stink of fear. Sergeant Miller, a veteran of a dozen campaigns and strikes, calmly injected himself with a stimpack as his squad fidgeted in their cramped seats. The voice of the pilot came over the intervox, his calm demeanour in sharp contrast with the anxiety of his passengers, the majority of them Whiteshields.

"Make your peace with the Emperor. We drop in two minutes."

The cabin was filled with muttered Ave Imperators and a dozen arms moved to make the sign of the Aquila, showing the faith of the men even without a nearby Commissar. Miller fiddled with his lasgun and power sword, setting the rifle to full auto and placing a hand on the blade's hilt.

Suddenly, a massive blast rocked the Valkyrie and prompted a few men to whimper in fear. Miller looked out the vision slit on the door to see a flanking 'Kyrie explode in a fireball, only to be replaced by yet another. On the starboard side of the craft, an escorting Vulture gunship jinked wildly in an attempt to evade the red-tinged searchlights of the Archenemy. Flak burst all around it, although Miller knew it was a matter of time before some lucky son-of-a-gretchin got a direct hit on the gunship. Even as he braced himself, another shock rattled Valkyrie and sent a corporal stumbling into him.

"LZ is hot! Hatch opening, the Emperor Protects. Good luck!"

Cursing, Miller got to his feet as the side doors opened. The grey-painted Valkyrie shuddered as a glancing hit from a heavy bolter round impacted the fuselage. The pilot gave as good as he got, letting off the two Hellstrike missiles and opening up with the multilaser. The crewmen by the door gave covering fire for his men with the heavy bolters, the guns being drowned out by the blast from a nearby explosion.

"Go, go, go! All Guardsmen-FOLLOW ME TO GLORY!" Miller found himself shouting orders even as he fired a burst at a couple of cultists manning a lascannon emplacement.

"FOR THE EMPEROR!"

The shout from his men was countered with a roar from the cultists who were now dying in droves, charging his squad with little more than rusty knives and malfunctioning laspistols.

"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRO—!"

A well-tossed frag broke off the charge, leaving moaning heretics and a small crater in the now-red sands of Cadia. The LZ now clear, the supporting Imperial gunships headed back, no doubt to pick up the next wave of Guardsmen. Miller breathed a short sigh of relief, as the hard part was now over.

Never had he been so wrong, as the man next to him was immediately cut down by a mass-reactive round, the bolt passing through him and burying itself in the ruined wreckage of a second man before exploding in a muffled _crump_.

"Heavy bolter!" The cry passed down the beach as Whiteshields dived for cover behind obstacles or were scythed down like a field of wheat. Miller knew better, and dashed for the cliffs in a zig-zag pattern desperately trying to evade the rounds. All around him, a veritable hell opened up as the now-unveiled Traitor guardsmen of the 666th Regiment of Foot began filling the air with volleys of bolt rounds and red-hued energy.

"Where's that artillery!" Somebody cried, only to be cut off by an exploding round from a mortar.

_Found it._ Miller slid the last few metres to the cliffs, muttering fervent prayers to the Emperor and wondering whose head would roll for this cluster-frak. A few feet to his left, a guardsman with a vox-caster was cut down by a stray stream of las, the man's headless body slumping slowly to the ground. On the squad vox-net, somebody was shrieking for his mother before being cut off by the sound of an explosion. _Never stood a chance…_

A short burst of bolt rounds from up ahead signalled a traitor bunker, the current focus of the fury of a few guardsmen. Unfortunately, the majority of their comrades had been killed, the remainder attempting to stay inconspicuous. Miller sighed. _Amateurs._

Leaping from behind a chipped and las-burned boulder, Miller narrowly dodged a blast from a lascannon emplacement before diving behind a tank barrier a few metres ahead of the beleaguered squad.

"Cover me!" he shouted, priming a krak grenade as he did so. He waited a second, then stood up and let fly before ducking back down. The air above him was hosed with heavy bolter fire, but only for a moment. A muted _krump_ came from the pillbox, followed by a stream of smoke and a small but raging fire. A nearby shell bursting caught a pair of men unawares, disintegrating them and deafening the men nearby.

A sharp ringing echoed in Miller's ears, depriving him of his hearing. _Oh, by the Emperor's arsewipe_. The shell had come from a Leman Russ, but not one of the Imperium's. This tank bore the marks of Chaos Undivided, a bloody eight-pointed star that proclaimed its defiance of the Emperor of Mankind. Spewing death from a trio of mismatched barrels, the tank's warp-touched commander was laughing maniacally from the cupola, firing bursts from the pintle-mounted heavy stubber as he did so.

"Sanity is for the weak! Blood for the Blood God!"

Sighing, Miller slapped in a scavenged hot-shot cartridge into his lasgun and aimed it at the deformed traitor.

"Blood for blood's sake—starting with yours!" Miller stood up and shouted back, sighting along the 1.5x scope as he did so. A sharp crack, and the heretic's head exploded in a dull red mist. The sergeant ducked back down as the air above him was filled with bolt rounds and warped promethium, scuttling away like the seaside crabs that once made this beach home.

**A/N Yes, this is a 40k version of the Omaha beach scene in Saving Private Ryan. It will get better, I promise. But for now, enjoy! Go CADIA!**


End file.
